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Analyzing Water Usage by Bioenergy Crops

Marty Green, a middle school earth science teacher at Plainwell Schools in Michigan, had the rare opportunity to investigate how different bioenergy crops responded to this summer's extreme drought. He worked with GLBRC ecologist Steve Hamilton at Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners, Michigan, to summarize thousands of data points to reveal how crops like corn and switchgrass respond to unusually dry soil conditions in cropping trials. Marty developed a classroom activity in which students draw conclusions from some of the graphs he produced in his research.